Creepy Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans

Voodoo Queen Grave at St. Louis 1  Copyright 2013 S. Giron

The World Horror Convention and the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards Weekend were held in New Orleans June 13 - 16, 2013. Over five hundred lovers of darkness attended panels and workshops by day while cruising Bourbon Street, Frenchmen Street, and beyond by night.

The convention was held at the Monteleone Hotel. Any google search will turn up stories about incidents that have occurred throughout the hotel over the years. The area and the hotel is rife with history and the echoes of my own personal ancestry resonated in my soul.

Bonding with my birth city for the first few days, I didn't turn my attention towards ghost hunting until Saturday June 15. For an hour or so in the afternoon, I roamed the hotel, taking pictures on the rooftop, the fourteenth floor, and the lobby.

 

 

Hotel Monteleone Copyright 2013 S. Giron

 

 

 When I went to the rooftop, there were many people from the con in the pool. It looked like a good idea to float in the water for a while but I already was overbooked. My huge curiousity about New Orleans combined with my love of my horror peeps was nearly overwhelming. Even though I'd come in on Wednesday, it already felt like there wasn't enough time to do all that my soul urged me to experience.

 

Hotel Monteleone Copyright 2013 S. Giron

 

 

 I walked through the hallways of the rooftop level and snapped several pictures. The air was thick in many places, not thick from humidity, but thick in a psychic sense. There was a sensation of bustling and reserved submission as I peered into the banquet room. The staff were in the process of setting it up but it was empty during the brief minute I walked into it.

 

In my own room. I had experienced some phenomenon during the few times I was alone.

 

In all honesty, if I hadn't been out dancing til dawn every night, I likely would have many more stories to tell about room 737. In a way, I'm glad I don't.

 

Hotel Monteleone Copyright 2013 S. Giron

Something as innocent as a chair gave me a sense of being watched, of someone observing me, waiting for a moment to catch my attention, to touch me or more. Perhaps a sense of expectation of seeing ghosts had been built in but on this particular trip, ghosts were not the objective of my trip. My main focus had been the convention all weekend. I was so happy to be seeing my peers again. I hadn't been to a World Horror Convention since it'd been in Toronto in 2007. I haven't been to a Stoker Banquet since 2009 when I won the Silver Hammer Award.

Hotel Monteleone Copyright 2013 S. Giron

I've mentioned in other blog posts some of the unexplainable events that happened to me.

On Sunday June 16 around seven o'clock, I decided to take a shower and get ready for my last night to commune with Bourbon Street and any other fun activity that caught my fancy.

I was taking a shower, not thinking about ghosts at all.

 

It had been a long sweaty day walking by the river and once more along Bourbon Street so I revelled in the pounding water against exhausted filthy flesh.

 

Before I went into the shower, I had plugged my phone into the wall to charge and placed it on the bed.

 

 As I stepped from the shower, I heard three cries or perhaps moans. The sound reminded me of the sound a woman makes when she's being pleasured. Three "ah, ah, ah" 's.

Hotel Monteleone Copyright 2013 S. Giron

Since I always shower with the door open, not really on purpose, I just never shut it, and since I was in the open doorway when I emerged from the shower, I can guarantee the sound came from within my room and not through the walls or from the hallway.

Ever the skeptic, I decided it wasn't a ghost getting it on in the room but perhaps one of my friends had texted me. After all, my phone is set very loud and has two chirps. But what I heard was three.

I checked my phone and no one had contacted me at all.

The air in the room was thick. There was something in the folds of the atmosphere waiting to slip between the cracks. I hurried to get changed, tying off my corset as quickly as possible. I turned on my K2 meter to see if there was activity. Of course there was. Finally ready, I took my K2 meter with me to check out a room on the notorious 14th floor.Whoever was making the noise was welcome to make it some more...once I was safely gone.

Sephera Giron in Room 737 Monteleone Hotel


Do YOU have a story about the Monteleone Hotel? Share it in the comments section!

Ghost Butler at Dawn

Haunted Butler Hallway Copyright S. Giron 2013



The con was over but dozens had stayed an extra night to live out their hedonistic fantasies one last time on Bourbon Street before the harsh glare of morning set in and real life continued on.

The World Horror Convention and the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Awards Weekend were combined this year in New Orleans from June 13 to 16. The business was held in the beautiful and totally haunted Hotel Monteleone. This story happened around five in the morning on Monday June 17.

It was Sunday night but that didn't matter in the French Quarter. We roamed around, throwing beads, drinking out of blinking skull heads, and watching girls in bikinis being tossed from bucking broncos. The lure of the Dungeon beckoned and a contingent of last remnants were still dancing in the pits of hell, hypnotised by heavy metal and squeezing every last drop of hedonism from their souls before it would all be over.

And then it was.

Sadly, we returned to the haunted hotel. I realized that one of my friends still hadn't been to the rooftop despite being there for days so off we went while the others went to bed.

Amazingly, the door to the pool area was still open, and no security came to kick us out. We stared out at the glittering lights of New Orleans, lamenting the impending morning. Still no security, so we settled into the metal deck chairs and watched the pool sparkle in the growing dawn.

As the sky lightened, we returned to the wrought iron fence to forlornly gaze one last time at this weird and wonderful city. We returned inside just as the morning sprinkler system baptized us into a new day. We re-entered the glass door and walked the short steps to the elevator. There was still no security. As we waited for the elevator and were still gabbing, I glimpsed over my shoulder and saw a man standing near or even kind of half into the wall, wearing black and white clothes. A suit. I turned further and he disappeared.

There was no door along the wall in the area where I had spotted him.

I nicknamed him "The Butler" since that was the first word that popped into my head. I haven't researched enough yet to know if he's a regular.

Security guards or even staff didn't have the same uniform or clothes as the man that I saw. In fact, he may have just been a man in a suit. It may have a been a woman in a suit. The face was blurry and hair kind of hung in his face. Staff would have likely acknowledged people wandering the halls at dawn. There wasn't time for the man to slip out the glass brass handled door to the pool and in fact, perhaps melted back into the wall.

Welcome to the Hotel Monteleone.

That was the first paranormal apparition that I've seen that clearly as far as I can recall. It didn't frighten me nearly as much as I had always anticipated seeing an apparition would frighten me. It happened so fast I didn't have time to even think about it. But perhaps it didn't frighten me that much because it was the last experience I had during my stay in New Orleans.

I had a few other experiences at the haunted hotel which I will share in separate blog posts that were more unsettling.

The picture of the hallway above was taken on Saturday afternoon. Something told me to take a picture there so I did. And this is where The Butler stood on Monday morning at dawn.

Please feel free to share your comments and your own stories about the Haunted Monteleone.